feedback he’s had from audience members indicates those ranchers leave with a desire to look at the total package of their herd. “The ranchers say they are going to look at the genetics of their animals and at anything they are doing at the ranch that might ultimately impact the value of the cattle – whether it’s how they wean the calves or how they vaccinate the cattle.”
It started with Ranch to Rail The Ranch to Rail program, a TAMU research proj-
ect that ran from 1992 to 2000, provided the data that shows how a proper weaning and vaccination program affects the value of calves.
after weaning minimize the stress when the calves go to the next phase of the cattle feeding industry. Calves from a VAC 45 program may bring a premium
at auction if they are consigned to a special sale for preconditioned calves. A number of auction markets conduct these special sales, supporting ranchers who are willing to put in the extra management and have the records to prove it. Producers may reap the greater fi nancial benefi ts
of preconditioning their calves if they sell them in load lots — or 50,000-pound lots. If ranchers aren’t producing enough uniform quality weaned calves to fi ll a load lot themselves, then they may wish to col- laborate with neighbors. That is a topic for another article. Hale says, “If you just put your pre-
conditioned calves through the regular auction and announce, ‘These cattle are VAC 45,’ a lot of times you’re not going to see the extra benefi t in those cattle.” The order buyer at a general auction,
he notes, is commingling precondi- tioned and non-preconditioned calves. That order buyer isn’t going to sort out the ones that don’t need to be treated to a health program, he explains.
In the Ranch to Rail program, ranchers placed a
minimum of 5 head of cattle on feed with Hale and his assistants. After a certain length of time on feed, carcass data was collected on the cattle and Hale sent the information to the participating ranchers, along with how the cattle performed in the feedlot. Hale says the data revealed an average difference
of $300 to $500 in net returns from the lower net ranches to the higher ones. When they dug into the data further, he says, “We observed that the health of the cattle — how the cattle were preconditioned, the health management of those cattle before they got to the feedyard, and the number of days they were weaned before they got to the feedyard — were really critical to their performance in the feedyard and even in packing the carcass.” During his Gate to Plate talk, Hale stresses the im-
portance of a preconditioning program like VAC 45, in which calves are vaccinated twice about 3 weeks apart, dewormed and weaned for at least 45 days be- fore being sold. Hale says the paired vaccinations help the animals’
immune systems. The 45-day weaning period gets the calves ready to eat. Both the vaccinations and the time
78 The Cattleman September 2014
Weight-gain genetics matter According to Hale’s rough estimates, 70 percent of
the value of an animal is in its growth. The remain- ing 30 percent of value is from the carcass quality and is essentially icing on the cake; therefore, better sires mean better fi nancial returns at sale time. Ranch to Rail data compared the dollar value of
calves from sires with high expected progeny differ- ences (EPDs) for economically important traits to the calves from average sires. Both groups of calves were the same age and the calves from the higher perform- ing sires generated greater returns than the calves from average sires. “Selecting cattle based on important economic traits
such as carcass traits, average daily gain and growth can be benefi cial,” Hale says. “Average daily gain (ADG) is really a very impor-
tant factor. If an animal is fed for about 150 days in the feedyard and gains half a pound more than another animal — it gains maybe 3.5 pounds compared to an animal that gains 3 pounds per day — that’s 75 pounds. At about $1.50 per pound per head right now, that’s more than $100 additional value.”
thecattlemanmagazine.com
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